


First You Will Be Baked

by MoragMacPherson



Series: Go Make Some New Disaster [3]
Category: Portal (Video Game), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoragMacPherson/pseuds/MoragMacPherson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chell learns a few things about herself from Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First You Will Be Baked

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Callowyn (you'll note that it's both better written than the prior two entries and also longer than both of them combined). Written for thegeminisage and xenoamorist/rubato, who can't seem to get enough of it.

When you arrive at the compound, the engine (that’s the word, not motor, the words are beginning to come back; listening to Daryl and Dean and Stan helps) cuts off and Dean and the boys are immediately out of the doors. Risa had been oddly silent during the journey, her hand a warm, comforting grip on your left arm; her body a warm, comforting cushion just beneath you. She is the first human to touch you in seventeen years and you wonder if that’s why her touches make your skin tingle. You’re moving a little more stiffly, but Risa is patient with you while you take a moment to figure out the mechanism (handle?) that opens the door, then slide out. You have been walking for a very long time. **  
  
** Stan and Daryl let your companion cube slip as they untie it from the truck, and the top of it swings open as it falls, spilling out the few extra bird carcasses from your hunt yesterday. Dean lifts an eyebrow at you. “You packing anything else?” he asks. **  
  
** “No,” you say, then lean over to pick up the birds. “If you wash these off, they should still be good.” **  
  
** “Oh, trust me, I know,” says a small, bearded man that rushes up from behind you and you fight the urge to jump back from him, because he moves and speaks too fast, almost like a turret. “I thought these had all migrated north for the summer. Where did you get them from?” He stops. “Where did  _ you _ come from? Dean, who is this?” **  
  
** Risa steps in front of you, and you haven’t been a little girl— no, you were a little girl — when were you a little girl — it’s so hard to say anything about any of this — but it’s sort of like standing behind your mother. Though when your mother and father fought, it was always your father who pulled you behind him. “This is Chell,” Risa says.  ”Chell’s a survivor.” **  
  
** And just like the word survivor had calmed Dean, it makes this man drop his clipboard to his side and offer you his hand. “Hi, Chell. I’m Chuck. Thanks for the poultry. Is that…” He trails off, eyeing your portal device. **  
  
** “That’s hers,” Dean says at the same time you say “That’s mine.” You catch his eye and he winks at you. You’re not sure what the wink means; maybe it means he’s taking your side? “She’s the only one who knows how to use it, so we’ll let her hold onto it for now,” says Dean. **  
  
** You frown; disliking the implication that at some point Dean might decide he  _ can _ take it away from you. But you know that would be harder than he thinks— none of these people are used to thinking with portals, that much is clear.  **  
  
** You’re distracted when Risa pulls on your jumpsuit. “Come on, Chell, I’m sure I’ve got something else that will fit you.” Risa jerks her chin up at Daryl and Stan. “Put that in Liza’s old cabin,” she says, and this must mean something, but it doesn’t make any sense to you.  **  
  
** You let Risa pull you along, but then Dean plants himself squarely in your way. “I want to take her to Cas.” **  
  
** “Give me a second to settle her in, then we’ll… deal with Cas,” says Risa. “I know that you were a little further away, but I’m pretty sure you could smell her too on the way over. I’m sure she could go for a shower, right, Chell?” You frown and sniff at yourself. You can’t remember ever smelling any different. Risa smells a little of sweat and flowers; Dean smells of sweat, some kind of machine oil, and something else, you don’t know what. None of them smells as sterile and clean as the Enrichment Center, or of the musk in the lower levels, or of the chemical burning smell from the Artificial Intelligence Incinerators. But Risa seems to think you smell… bad, and that worries you. **  
  
** “Not that Cas notices shit like that these days anyway.” Dean tilts his chin slightly, then relents. “Chuck, get those birds down to cold storage; the rest of you, do whatever the hell Risa told you to. Chell ain’t the only one here who needs a shower.” **  
  
** Risa reaches back and twines her fingers in yours — and okay, that’s good, you tighten your grip around her hand. There are more people looking and moving and all of these buildings made of wood, and now that they’re talking about it you notice all of these  _ smells _ , but it’s okay, because Risa is fine and she has your hand, and she’ll be your guide here… **  
  
** … kind of like GLaDOS in those first test chambers, but you shove that thought away.  There are so few machines here. All of the voices shift in cadence and tone. Sometimes the same word will mean two different things depending on how they say it; you know the difference is there, but you’re not quite back to the point where you can translate the differences.  **  
  
** Risa tells you, “Todas bien, pobrecita. No se preocupe. Tengo ropa limpia para ti, y hay agua caliente en las duchas.”  Risa’s lips twist at this. “Chuck!” she shouts, and her voice is  _ loud _ . “If you haven’t already, crank up the damn boilers.” **  
  
** From the distance you hear a faint “Yes, ma’am,” in Chuck’s voice, and then Risa has pulled you up a small set of irregular steps. The floors aren’t quite even but then you’re in her room and everything is— organic. Worn, tattered, functional, well-kept. Hardly anything plastic and nothing at all that’s covered with repulsion gel or conversion gel. There aren’t any panels; it’s all logs and boards. Will the portals even work here? **  
  
** “… Belleza? Escúchame!” She snaps her fingers in front of your face, like Dean did. “Estás ahí? Vuelve a mí, belleza.” **  
  
** You snap out of it and Risa is standing in front of you, a pile of fabric in her arms. She smiles when you focus back on her face; she looks younger when she smiles. “Here, take these. I’ll show you where the showers are. Don’t listen to anything Dean says while you’re in there. Have you ever had moonshine?” You shake your head, not exactly clear on the meaning of moonshine — you’ve been to the moon, but you’re pretty sure that’s not what Risa means. She snorts. “Then for the love of God, don’t  _ drink _ anything he gives to you, either.” **  
  
** You open your mouth to speak as you take the clothes, but not even Spanish will come out. Instead, as Risa approaches you again to take your hand, you hold up the portal device and tilt your chin at it. **  
  
** Risa’s lips go thin. “I’m guessing that shouldn’t get wet, right?” **  
  
** “Do not submerge The Device in liquid, even partially,” you hear yourself saying, and it’s GLaDOS’ voice, her intonation, but it’s the only way you can get it out. You sort of hate yourself for it. **  
  
** Risa nods. “Okay, okay. Here, let me.” But she doesn’t reach for the device like you expect. Instead she pulls the bed — her bed — away from the wall and pulls up a plank. Then she fishes a charm out from under her shirt — no, not a charm, a key. She pulls the key off of her neck and uses it to open what looks like a footlocker under the floorboards. Risa swings the lid open and offers you the key. “It should fit in here.” **  
  
** You walk over and look. Yes, there are some papers and photos and clothes— and  _ grenades _ ** —  ** in there, but the device will fit with plenty of room. You nod at her and try to smile for the first time you can remember — not a reflexive smile, but an intentional one. It feels a little foreign, but Risa returns it. You take the key from her, drop the clothes she’d handed you to the ground, and arrange the items in the box to make a sort of nest for the portal gun. Then you shut the lid, lock it, and stand back up, retrieving your new clothes. **  
  
** Risa nudges the boards back into place and then shoves her bed back, and everything looks just like it had. You offer her the key back and she gives you an odd look before she takes it. Then she slips the thong over your head when you don’t expect it and you  _ do _ jump back. “Qué?” **  
  
** “Para ti, Chell. Hold onto it.”  She steps close again and pushes your hair back from your face.  ”Todas bien.” **  
  
** “It’s okay,” you repeat back at her. **  
  
** “Yes,” she says. “I promise. Now come on. You’re a nice girl, but it smells like you  _ have _ been wearing that jumpsuit for the last seventeen years.” **  
  
** You laugh a little, even though there is… actually a pretty good chance that Risa is  _ right _ . She twines her fingers with yours again and you feel a real smile come over your face.  **  
  
** The showers are in yet another cabin; this one does smell musty the same way the lowest levels at Aperture did. It’s also noisy; as gruff as Dean’s voice is when he speaks, it’s rougher and a little off key when he sings. **  
  
** ” _ Hangman, hangman, hold on a little while. _ **  
** _ I think I see my father comin’, riding many a mile. _ **  
  
** _ Father, did you bring me any silver? _ **  
** _ Father, did you bring me any gold? _ **  
** _ Father, did you bring me anything, _ **  
** _ To keep me from the gallow’s pole? _ **  
  
** _ Son, I couldn’t get no silver, _ **  
** _ Son, I couldn’t get no gold. _ **  
** _ Son, you know we’re too damn poor, _ **  
** _ To keep you from the gallows pole _ .” **  
  
** Risa shakes her head. “Try to ignore him,” she says, but it’s a little difficult. Though there are chest-high dividers in the cabin — closer to waist-high in Dean’s case, holding a glass jar of clear liquid on the edge that he sips from after every verse — this is the most of another human that you can remember seeing. And it makes you feel… warm. **  
  
** Risa pulls you along and sets the temperature of the water. While you strip off the filthy jumpsuit and tank top for what you hope is the last time, Risa hangs your new clothes on a rack far from the spray; she drapes the towel from a peg a little closer. When she’s done, she turns to you and… her cheeks go a little pink. “There’s, ah, soap. The little bottle is conditioner, for your hair. We don’t have a lot of it, comprende? But you should probably use some. There’s, under the tap, there’s a comb— I should have brought my brush.” Risa isn’t even looking at you now. “Just — get yourself washed up, and knock when you’re done, I’ll — we’ll— don’t worry about it. I’ll be outside.” Risa keeps shaking her head and practically runs out of the cabin. **  
  
** You look after the door for a second before you hear the sound of deep, resonant laughter— nothing like GLaDOS or Wheatley. You turn your head sharply, but Dean isn’t looking at you, just laughing. “Don’t worry about that mother hen, sweetheart. Just take a shower, get yourself dressed, and by the time Risa takes you to Cas’ cabin, she’ll have you looking like her prom date.” Dean turns off the water, then faces you, rubbing his towel over his hair. “Just try not to take too long. It was a long patrol and I need my beauty sleep.” He winks at you again, shrugging on his own clothes and plucking up the now-empty jar. “I’ll give you your privacy.” He leaves you there, alone. **  
  
** You can’t remember… there must have been showers at the Enrichment Center, but you’d never had any sense of being dirty. Everything — especially in the test chambers — had been so sterile and anti-septic. You just aren’t sure. Your body remembers, though, muscle memories that let you scrub your body, wash your hair and comb the knots out.  **  
  
** The clothes Risa gave you do fit, if a little loosely, and the only keepsakes from Aperture that you put back on are your shoes and jump boots. The rest of it you kick in a corner, certain that someone like Chuck will come along and find some use for them — kindling if nothing else. **  
  
** When you emerge from the cabin, whistling that tune all the radios at Aperture had played — and realize that you remember how to whistle — Risa seems to approve of what she sees. “Dean says to bring you to see Cas right away. He promised me that there’d be food.” **  
  
** “Okay,” you say, and you have a small impulse to give Risa your hand again, but you hold back. Regardless of what Risa said, you’re a grown woman. You feel… at least thirty two, even if you don’t have that many years worth of memories. You feel even older than thirty two, and not for the first time, you wonder just how much GLaDOS and Aperture took— what have they done to you? There’s just no way to know. **  
  
** Risa nods. “Do you want to get your—” but you shake your head before she can finish. “All right. Follow me then. And, uh… well, it’s probably best to let Cas explain himself, entiendes?”  **  
  
** “Not really,” you say. **  
  
** Risa laughs. “I don’t think any of us except for Dean do. Cas… he’s not cruel. Just… angry sometimes.” Risa crosses herself, and that means something, you know it does. “Cas es alguien que puede ver cosas. Él sabe cosas ocultas. Se puede mirar en su alma.” Risa turns and stops, holds you by the shoulders. “Don’t be scared, and don’t let him try to trick you. Entiendes?” **  
  
** “Sí, sí.” **  
  
** “Good,” says Risa. She looks to the side, to a cabin with dim yellow lights washing out through high windows. “He’s inside. Don’t be afraid.” **  
  
** You’re not quite sure if she’s talking to you or herself, because you have no trouble mounting the steps. Risa is the one who lingers behind, and you can hear words that almost sound like Spanish, low, fast, and under her breath. “ _ Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. _ ” **  
  
** Then the door opens and you see… Dean. Who turns and looks at you, with a smile that doesn’t ring true. “Cas, this is Chell,” he says, pulling away from the man he’d been leaning over. **  
  
** You’d expected more. The one thing that strikes you is that Cas’ eyes are nearly the same shade of blue as your own, a shocking light color that you’d shared only with your paternal grandmother — you remember nothing else of her, save that her eyes had been your own. **  
  
** But you share the color also with this man, along with a few other traits. He is slower than other people. His movements are more deliberate, more calculated—though they’re not mechanical, not like the machines at Aperture. Cas’ head tilts to the side.  **  
  
** “Hello, Chell,” he says, and you feel like you’re naked again. You look back and Risa has barely entered the room, clutching the doorframe. When you turn to face Cas again, he’s staring. Risa was right: it feels like he’s staring through your soul. “You don’t give up, do you?” **  
  
** You furrow your brow. That sounds like a challenge. That sounds almost like GLaDOS, telling you to lie down in front of the missile turrets. “No,” you say. “I don’t.” **  
  
** Cas nods, waving a cane at you like some kind of king with a sceptre. “Where are you—?” he starts before he cuts off to laugh, and there’s something wrong with that laugh. Almost like Wheatley, when he’d first taken control of the facility. “That element… there are maybe five places in the galaxy where you can find it, none of them on this planet.” He springs to his feet quicker than you could have imagined, belying any need for the cane that he keeps grasped in his hand. “What exactly are you, Michelle Longabaugh-Bolivar?” **  
  
** You lean back from him, just a little. You can’t help it; it’s pure animal instinct. “My name is Chell,” you say, but even as you say it, you know that he’s right— your birth name, the name your mother and father gave you, the name you had before you were a test subject,  _ was _ Michelle Longabaugh-Bolivar. **  
  
** Cas’ eyebrows arch and he leans back, out of your personal space. He shakes his head and slides back into his chair. “You brought me a ghost, Dean.” **  
  
** You frown, but not so quickly or deeply as Dean does. “She stepped over the salt. She touched iron.” This isn’t really about you: there’s some larger argument going on here.  You’re only the latest thing they’ve had to disagree on, but you  _ do _ resent that they see you as a thing. **  
  
** “If she’s not a ghost…” and now Cas turns to you and opens his mouth. Instead of a words, a combinations of clicks, whines, and growls emerges from his throat. You’re not alone: Risa and Dean look equally confused. Cas looks smug. “So not from that planet. Not quite a vengeful spirit,” he says, twirling his cane in the air. “Call her a determined one. But she’s a spirit all the same, even though that body she’s wearing is designed to look like the one she was born with.  Attached to the form, are you?” His voice turns teasing and playful.  **  
  
** For the first time, you feel  _ anger _ . You rush at Cas, and neither Dean or Risa tries to stop you, but Cas does.  He sits up and holds both of your wrists in his hands, and he doesn’t look that strong, but now you’re looking at him, at those eyes.  They aren’t quite human, just like he says you aren’t quite human.  They’re sad and compassionate and exhausted and ancient and you see yourself reflected in them.  ”Ah, Chell.  You should stop trying to remember.  It will only hurt worse.”   **  
  
** The fight seeps out of you and you’re on your knees in front of him, one of his hands trailing through your damp hair. And you’re crying, sobbing like you can’t remember — so many things you can’t remember, that he says you shouldn’t remember.   **  
  
** “But you won’t give up,” Cas says. “So I’ll do what I can.  Look up, Chell, look at me.” **  
  
** Your head is leaning on his knee so you look up.  Cas helps you, steadies you with his deceptively strong hands.  ”You made it out of the larger prison, yes, but that…” and Cas gets a queer smile on his face before he sobers.  He wipes one of your tears away with his thumb.  ”This body.   _ She _ made it for you.  Time and time again.  But she couldn’t have kept you in it if you didn’t want to stay, if you’d been willing to give up.  But you don’t.” Cas isn’t looking at you anymore, but past you, at either Risa or Dean. “You never will. There’s something beautiful about that.”  The others remain silent.   **  
  
** “Come here,” Cas says to you, and you do, as obedient as the child you  _ do  _ remember being, nestling yourself between his legs and letting him cradle your head in one arm.  ”Look at me, this won’t hurt, te lo prometo.”  You raise your gaze back up and he brushes his fingers across your eyebrows and you see… **  
  
** ** …  ** white, even cleaner and brighter than any test chamber … **  
  
** Then you’re resting in Risa’s lap, on a cushion not far from Cas’ chair.  You look up at Risa, worried and angry, then at Dean, terrified and furious.  ”There has to be another explanation. We would have known—” **  
  
** “Are you really willing to deny her this, Dean?  It’s true, I promise you.  Even though this isn’t the body she brought from the womb, this is her soul.” Cas stands, grabbing his cane.  ”This is Chell’s knowledge, Chell’s life, and believe me when I say that not one of us — not  _ one  _ ** —  ** has fought harder to stay alive than she has.  How many times have you rebuilt that car, Dean?  How many pieces have you replaced?  Would you ever try to say that’s not your car?”  Cas slams the cane on the ground.  ”She has  _ earned _ this, they both have, so shut the hell up and let me give her the news. You don’t get to make this decision.” **  
  
** “What news?” you ask, at the same time as Risa does.  Dean looks at you for only a moment before he turns around and punches a wall. Risa wraps her arm tighter around you even as she helps you to sit up. **  
  
** Cas says, “Your memories, Chell — there are some I will not return to you, that I would not wish upon anyone. Most of what you need will return on its own.  But there is one thing you don’t remember which I can give back to you.” He turns away and looks at Dean, who has not moved from his rigid pose against the wall.  ”Your mother is alive.  I know her; Dean knows her.  She is a friend.” **  
  
** “I never heard anyone call her Longabaugh,” Dean begins, but Cas cuts him off. **  
  
** “You never pay enough attention,” Cas snaps.  They glare at each other for a few tense seconds before Cas turns to you, his eyes gentle.  ”Do you remember your mother’s name?” **  
  
** You’ve tried, ever since you escaped you’ve been trying, you can remember her face and her voice and the way she held you every time she said goodbye, but no.  To you, she is mama, and needs no other name.  ”No,” you admit. **  
  
** Cas nods.  ”Her name is Ellen Longabaugh.  When she married, she took her husband’s name: Harvelle.” **  
  
** Your heart sticks in your throat.  ”My mother — is still alive?” **  
  
** “Last we knew.  That was two weeks ago.”  Dean’s voice is lower and more bitter than ever. **  
  
** You feel giddy. You might not exactly be human, but you’re not alone.  You want to pull Risa up and dance.  But if your mother is alive — if Ellen is alive, that demands one further question.  ”And her daughter, her other daughter, my sist—” **  
  
** Dean doesn’t let you finish the word.  ”Jo.  And no.  She isn’t.”  Dean won’t look at you, he turns on Cas.  ”Now, if you don’t mind, I’m leaving.  You two can play grief counsellors, I’m too fucking tired.”  He spins on his feet and stomps out into the night.  You watch him go and wonder what else there might be to say.   **  
  
** For the life of you, you can’t come up with anything.


End file.
